


Plague Doctor

by Raindropsonwhiskers



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mistaken Identity, POV Outsider, Roleswap, Sort Of, ThoscheiLockdown2020, ThoscheiTreatLockdown2020, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23271754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raindropsonwhiskers/pseuds/Raindropsonwhiskers
Summary: The Master is posing as the Doctor to steal a valuable artifact from a cruise ship; the Doctor is forced to play the Master's role in return.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & The Master (Dhawan), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 59
Collections: Thoschei Lockdown The First 2020





	Plague Doctor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThoughtsCascade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtsCascade/gifts), [FictionPenned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/gifts).



> This is a treat fic as part of the Thoschei Discord "Hold On To The One Brain Cell We Have Left" fic and art swap; since both ThoughtsCascade and FictionPenned had very similar prompts, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and write this for both of them!

Captain Mara Hrethflen would like to think of herself as someone who stays calm in a crisis, and what’s happening now certainly fits the bill. A mysterious disease ravaging her ship, driving the crew mad and making people drop dead in hours? Definitely a crisis. And now, a strange man has shown up, claiming to be a doctor, running around and investigating the dead bodies of her men in hopes of finding a cure.

He’d appeared out of nowhere, and Mara hadn’t trusted him at first. It was suspicious, to say the least, that both a deadly illness and someone supposedly knowing how to fix it had showed up on her ship within a day of each other. Add into that the fact that, hidden deep in the cargo hold, the ship held an extremely valuable gem, and it seemed almost too convenient. But the man seemed sincere, hadn’t even spoken of the cargo hold except to ask if anyone had brought organic matter with them, and Mara, despite herself, was growing to like him.

Strangely dressed and oddly mannered as he was, he was nice. He tended to ramble a bit, and Mara knew some of the other crew didn’t like how he was prying into their business, but he’d already come up with a plan to evacuate the ship safely, and in Mara’s books, that was good enough.

Her train of thought on the current state of crisis is interrupted by a strange wheezing groan. Head jerking up, Mara looks around her cabin. Nothing. She stands and opens the door into the hallway to see, standing in front of her door, a blonde woman in a pale gray coat, her hand poised to knock.

“Oh, good, someone’s in here,” she says. “Hi, I got your distress signal. What’s the problem?”

“You aren’t the first person to ask me that today, weirdly enough,” Mara sighs. “Come in, I’ll explain.”

The woman enters and sits down in one of the chairs, eyes darting around the room. Mara can’t read her, can’t tell if she’s a threat or not. There’s a look in her eyes that suggests more to her than is readily obvious.

“So, what is it? Invasion, ‘bout to crash land on a planet, someone important gone missing, something important gone missing?” the woman asks.

“I’m the captain of this ship. There’s a disease that’s been killing my crew and passengers. We’ve already got someone helping, but more hands can always be useful,” Mara says. “Who are you, anyway?”

“This person helping, wouldn’t happen to be called the Doctor, would they?” the woman asks, ignoring her question. “Probably a tallish bloke with weird clothing?”

“Er, yes. Well, he isn’t much taller than you, but the purple suit he’s wearing is definitely odd,” Mara agrees.

The woman’s face shifts slightly. She pulls out a strange device, almost like a datascreen but smaller, and shows it to Mara. On it is a photo of the Doctor, or at least someone who looks very similar to him, though without the beard and in far more casual clothing. He’s smiling at whoever’s taking the photo.

“Is this him?” the woman asks, and the slightly cheerful undertone to her voice is gone.

“Yes,” Mara answers, getting the distinct feeling she’s making a mistake. “You never told me who you are, ma’am.”

There’s a moment where the woman seems to consider something, and then a cold, cruel smile spreads across her face. In an instant, she’s gone from someone Mara probably would have enjoyed a drink with on planetside leave to someone she wouldn’t trust as far as she can throw her.

“I’m the Master,” the woman says, and Mara knows the second she says it it’s not just a title, “and you will obey me. Now, tell me where the Doctor is.”

Lilian Kingston was really just on the cruise because her parents had won the tickets and didn’t want to come. She didn’t really want to go either, but they had insisted it would be good for her to get away from school for a bit after the break up. She’d expected it to be boring, and for the first week or so, it had been. But now, with everything happening, Lillian had never been less bored in her life. The disease had been scary at first, but then the Doctor had shown up, said he’d found a way to cure it, and then - Lillian could hardly believe it - he’d asked if she’d like to help him. Obviously, she’d said yes.

Then that strange woman showed up. She’d entered the medbay in a whirl of gray fabric and anger, and now she was in the middle of a shouting match with the Doctor. Well, sort of. Really, it seems like they’re having two separate solo shouting matches that just happen to be directed at each other.

“You’re supposed to be dead!” the woman yells.

“I’m not letting you get the diamond!” the Doctor snaps.

“I had to pretend to be you! Do you know how  _ annoying _ it was?” she continues.

“Whatever your evil plan is, I won’t let you get away with it!”

“Are you  _ really _ still doing this? I already know who you are, and there’s no point in continuing the charade.”

“I’ve already found a cure for the disease, and once I capture you your plan will be foiled!”

The woman heaves a deep sigh and pulls out a strange device. “Just leave now and I won’t put this ship on lockdown so you can’t get in the cargo bay.”

Lillian isn’t sure what exactly the thing she’s holding is, but it looks suspicious. She’s been slowly creeping behind the woman in case she tried something threatening, and this absolutely counts. So, Lillian slams the heavy medical textbook in her hands into the back of the woman’s head. She collapses to the floor in a heap.

“There!” she says triumphantly. “Captured.”

The Doctor smiles. “Thank you, Lillian, you’ve been very helpful. This woman is a dangerous renegade known as the Master. If she’d been let loose on this ship, who knows what kind of problems she would have caused?”

Lillian beams.

When Prenton Brunard, Intergalactic Emergency Services Field Agent First Class, arrives on the cruise ship, he’s not entirely sure what happened. The captain is rambling about some woman called the Master, who supposedly showed up and threatened her about the whereabouts of a doctor. Said doctor was, apparently, helping stop a mysterious disease he can find no evidence of. Neither of the people the captain has spoken of are anywhere to be found on the ship. A few people remember seeing the doctor, and one young woman even mentions the Master.

Prenton isn’t convinced, though. There’s no way two people boarded a ship mid-flight, stopped a disease that doesn’t seem to have happened, and then disappeared again without a trace. It’s impossible. Therefore, he concludes in his report, it was all a hallucination, caused by the criminals who stole a million-credit diamond from the hold and escaped using some sort of teleportation tech. Really, it’s the only logical conclusion.


End file.
